Movie World
Kangana Ranaut to play Jayalalithaa – Part 2
By Dinesh Kamath
Actress Kangana Ranaut is set to
play the role of legendary Tamil actor and politician Jayalalithaa in the
upcoming multilingual biopic.
Kangana Ranaut born on 23 March
1987 is an Indian actress and director who works in Hindi films. One of the
highest-paid actresses in the country, she is the recipient of several awards,
including three National Film Awards and four Filmfare Awards. Ranaut has
featured five times in Forbes India's Celebrity 100 list.
Jayaram Jayalalithaa (24 February
1948 – 5 December 2016) was an Indian politician and film actor who served five
terms as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu for over fourteen years between 1991
and 2016.
Born in Bhambla, a small town in
Himachal Pradesh, Ranaut initially aspired to become a doctor at the insistence
of her parents. Determined to build her own career path, she relocated to Delhi
at age sixteen, where she briefly became a model. After training under the
theatre director Arvind Gaur, Ranaut made her feature film debut in the 2006
thriller Gangster, for which she was awarded the Filmfare Award for Best Female
Debut. She received praise for portraying emotionally intense characters in the
dramas Woh Lamhe (2006), Life in a... Metro (2007) and Fashion (2008). For the
last of these, she won the National Film Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Jayalalithaa was born on 24
February 1948 at Melukote, Pandavapura taluka, Mandya district, then in Mysore
State (now Karnataka) to Jayaram and Vedavalli in Tamil Brahmin Iyengar family.Jayalalithaa
first came into prominence as a leading film actress in the mid-1960s. Though
she had entered the profession reluctantly, upon the urging of her mother to
support the family, Jayalalithaa worked prolifically. She appeared in 140 films
between 1961 and 1980, primarily in the Tamil, Telugu and Kannada languages.
Jayalalithaa received praise for her versatility as an actor and for her
dancing skills, earning the sobriquet "queen of Tamil cinema". Among
her frequent co-stars was M. G. Ramachandran, or MGR, a Tamil cultural icon who
leveraged his immense popularity with the masses into a successful political
career. In 1982, when MGR was chief minister, Jayalalithaa joined the AIADMK,
the party he founded. Her political rise was rapid; within a few years she
became AIADMK propaganda secretary and was elected to the Rajya Sabha, the
upper house of India's Parliament. After MGR's death in 1987, Jayalalithaa
proclaimed herself his political heir and, having fought off the faction headed
by Janaki Ramachandran, MGR's widow, emerged as the sole leader of the AIADMK.
Following the 1989 election, she became Leader of the Opposition to the DMK-led
government headed by Karunanidhi, her bête noire. In 1991 Jayalalithaa became
chief minister, Tamil Nadu's youngest.
There were attempts to make many
films based on the life of Jayalalithaa. In Mani Ratnam's political drama
Iruvar (1997), the character of Kalpana portrayed by Aishwarya Rai, was
inspired by Jayalalithaa and her professional and personal relationship with M.
G. Ramachandran. Faisal Saif completed work on major portions of a film titled
Amma between 2014 and 2016, but was forced to shelve it following threats from
members of Jayalalithaa's political party. The makers denied that the film was
a biopic, but stated that actress Ragini Dwivedi portrayed a role resembling
the politician.
Since Jayalalithaa's death, several
filmmakers have announced biopics on the politician, with five currently in
production. In January 2017, Telugu filmmaker Dasari Narayana Rao registered
the title Amma and began preparing for a biopic on the politician. The film was
being planned with Anushka Shetty in the lead role, but Rao's death in May 2017
effectively ended the project, despite indications that Mohan Babu may revive it.
Producer Adithya Bharadwaj announced that his team were over a year into
pre-production work for a proposed biopic of Jayalalithaa, during December
2017. Titled Thaai: Puratchi Thalaivi, he revealed that it would predominantly
be a fictionalised retelling of her story with some real life footage also
included. Bharadwaj suggested that he had briefly touched upon the possibility
of a biopic with Jayalalithaa when she was alive, but the script had to be
reworked following her death. Despite his suggestions that the film would begin
production in January 2018, the project did not take off. Soon after news
emerged about Vijay's and Priyadarshini's biopics in August 2018, Adithya
reconfirmed that Bharathiraja had been signed to be the director of the film.
He added that the team were considering either Aishwarya Rai or Anushka Shetty
for the role of Jayalalithaa, and either Kamal Haasan or Mohanlal for the role
of M. G. Ramachandran.
In August 2018, producer Vishnu
Vardhan Induri of Vibri Media announced that he was working on a biopic of
Jayalalithaa, and that A. L. Vijay would direct the project. The team announced
that pre-production work and research was ongoing and that the film would focus
on the personal life of the politician, showing her vulnerable side. Actresses
including Nayanthara and Vidya Balan were approached by Vijay to star in the
lead role, while Sai Pallavi was considered for the supporting role of V. K.
Sasikala. Within a day of Induri's announcement, director Priyadarshini
announced that she had also been working for four months on the pre-production
of a biopic, which would be launched in September 2018. Priyadarshini suggested
that she had four scripts ready, with each focusing on different aspects of
Jayalalithaa’s life, and that the narration would be balanced by showing both
her positive and negative sides. Titled The Iron Lady, Nithya Menen was signed
on to play the lead role, while Aishwarya Rajesh and Varalaxmi Sarathkumar were
in talks for a supporting role for the character of Sasikala.
Another biopic to be shot as a
web-series by Gautham Menon became the fourth such announcement of a related
project in August 2018. Production on the series progressed quietly throughout
late 2018, with Ramya Krishnan selected to play Jayalalithaa, and Indrajith and
Vamsi Krishna portraying M. G. Ramchandran and Sobhan Babu respectively. In
October 2018, Sasikala's nephew Jeyanandh Dhivakaran announced a further biopic
on Jayalalithaa, which would focus more on her relationship with Sasikala and
M. Natarajan. Director Linguswamy was signed on to the project, and began
pre-production work by meeting close aides and politicians of Jayalalithaa.
Now there is an attempt being made
to make a film titled Thalaivi in Tamil and Jaya in Hindi, the film will be directed
by AL Vijay, one of the leading filmmakers down South who has earlier directed
landmark films such as Madrasapattinam and Deiva Thirumagal. The film is
written by K.V. Vijayendra Prasad of Baahubali and Manikarnika fame, the film
will be produced by Vishnu Vardhan Induri and Shaailesh R Singh under the
banner of Vibri and Karma Media and Entertainment. Now in this film,iIt will be
great to witness Kangana Ranaut portraying the actress-turned-politician,
Jayalalitha who was a superstar and went on to become an iconic politician.
It’s a great concept for a mainstream film.
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